The Bentway is an ambitious project that aims to transform 10 acres of vacant or underutilized public land beneath a segment of the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto into a series of vibrant spaces. More and more in dense urban areas, civic infrastructure is playing host to green and open space that can accommodate passive and active recreational activities. As the area was the original shoreline of Lake Ontario before the City expanded into the Lake, it was important to the design team to involve the idea of the movement of water. In order to realize this vision, the team set out to manage not only rainfall incidents on the site, but also some runoff from the Gardiner Expressway above.

The site provides onsite retention through enhanced grass swales, bioretention, infiltration galleries and open-bottomed subsurface storage units. All runoff from impervious surfaces is treated by the treatment train approach.